Stanford bioengineer Manu Prakash, PhD, is giving away 10,000 build-your-own paper microscope kits to citizen scientists with the most inspiring ideas for things to do with this new invention.

This invention, called Foldscope, is a print-and-fold optical microscope that can be assembled from a flat sheet of paper. Although it costs less than a dollar in parts, it can magnify objects over 2,000 times and is small enough to fit in a pocket.

“Many children around the world have never used a microscope, even in developed countries like the United States,” said Prakash. “A universal program providing a microscope for every child could foster deep interest in science at an early age.”

Through this project, he and his team will assemble a crowd-sourced biology microscopy manual that includes examples of creative uses for his microscope, collected from the scientists, teachers, tinkerers, thinkers, hackers and kids who participate.

“So many times people use a tool for one specific purpose and don’t realize the rich potential for other uses,” said Prakash. “This online manual will inspire further explorations.”

To apply for a Foldscope kit, submit ideas on how you would use your microscope to signup (at) foldscope (dot) com. Recipients must pledge to document their experiments in a way that could be replicated by anyone. Submission details and sample proposals are posted at Foldscope.com. Kits will be shipped in August 2014 to the applicants with the best ideas.

“My dream is that someday, every kid will have a Foldscope in their back pocket,” said Prakash.

The scenario many of us learned in school is that two X chromosomes make someone female, and an X and a Y chromosome make someone male. These are simplistic ways of thinking about what is scientifically very complex.